


An Unbroken Heart

by respoftw



Series: 30 prompt OTP challenge - McShep [13]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Past Rodney McKay/Jennifer Keller - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 12:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11897430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: "It's a break up. I figured ice cream was the way to go.”John comforts Rodney post-break up.  He does a really good job.





	An Unbroken Heart

**Author's Note:**

> 13\. Eating ice cream

“What's this?”

“It's ice cream, McKay. Don't tell me you've been here so long you've forgotten what ice cream is?”

John gave up waiting for Rodney to reach out and take the carton, digging into it himself with the spoon he'd pilfered from the mess.

“I can see it's ice cream, I do have eyes. What I _meant_ was: where's the beer?”

John shrugged and spoke around the spoon in his mouth. “It's a break up. I figured ice cream was the way to go.”

“If I was a pre-teen girl maybe,” Rodney scoffed.

“Hey,” John pointed the cold spoon at Rodney, “ice cream has no gender. It's a fun filled treat for all the family. Besides we have a mission tomorrow.”

Rodney ripped the spoon from John's hand and dug himself a mouthful of ice cream from the tub. “You couldn't at least have brought another spoon?” Rodney's complaint lost some of its edge as it morphed into a moan of pleasure.

John grinned. “What? You scared of catching cooties? I'll have you know that I took my life into my own hands rescuing this from deep freeze. There was only time to grab one, it was too dangerous to hang around there for longer. I could have been attacked by some harpy looking for her monthly fix of Ben & Jerry’s.”

“Hah,” it was Rodney's turn to point the spoon at John (and get it ripped from his hand), “so you admit that it is traditionally a woman’s thing.”

“I think, traditionally, it's a heartbreak thing,” John held the spoon out to Rodney after taking a mouthful. “Seemed appropriate.”

Rodney took the spoon and fiddled with it instead of diving in for more ice cream, angling it so the moon gleamed off the metal. It was a warm night, the sky clear and the water gently lapping at the struts of the pier. _Their_ pier.

John set the carton of ice cream down beside him and waited for Rodney to process whatever thoughts were running through his mind.

“I'm not heart broken,” Rodney eventually said. “I - - I should be; Jeannie thinks I should be. But I'm not. And I don't know why.”

John wasn't going to touch that one with a barge pole. He did his best to hum, noncommittal and supportive, but Rodney knew him too well. Blue eyes zeroed in on him, a sharp, confused look that made John sigh.

“You know something,” Rodney accused. “You know something I don't.”

“I know a lot of things you don't.” John tried to bluff it out. “Like how to fly a black hawk, all the lyrics to Johnny Cash songs…”

Rodney wasn't buying any of it. He twisted around, his right knee moving closer to John's leg as he shifted, to look John dead on. “Tell me,” he demanded.

John leant back on his hands, putting some much needed space between them. Too little space was dangerous, it always had been.

“I don't know anything,” he defended himself.

“But you suspect something.”

John sighed. “Maybe I do. But I could be wrong.”

“I'll be the judge of that,” Rodney snapped. “Let's hear it. Why am I not heart broken?”

John smiled sadly. “Because your heart was never in it.”

Rodney’s mouth opened and closed, sputtering. John could see that he was ramping up to a head of steam and he wanted to avoid that if at all possible so he did the only thing he could and kept talking.  

“You never loved Keller. Just like you never loved Katie. You loved the idea of them, maybe. A pretty girl on your arm that would applaud when you won your Nobel and look good in the pictures. Someone who could help you pass on your genes maybe? It could have been anyone.”

“So, what?” Rodney sounded hurt and John hadn't expected that; didn't want that; _never_ wanted that. “I'm incapable of loving someone? Is that what you're saying? I'm nothing but a selfish, self-serving jackass who used a perfectly nice girl to fulfil -“

John cut him off. “I never said that. I never even thought that. You -” John sat up straight and kicked his feet out a little, looking at the way the moon reflected off the water, anything not to look at Rodney while he said this. “I know you Rodney and you've got the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met, ok? When you fall in love it'll burn you up. You'll be consumed by it. You'll…” John cleared his throat. “I think the fact that you just referred to Keller as a ‘perfectly nice girl’ says more about the situation than anything I could say.”

Rodney didn't reply to that and John couldn't bring himself to look at him. He tried to guess how Rodney was reacting from the sound of his breathing alone.

It was surprisingly easy to do.

“She _is_ a perfectly nice girl.” Rodney broke the silence.

John shrugged again. “If you say so.”

“You didn't like her?” Rodney sounded surprised.

“She kept trying to change you,” John answered quietly. “I didn't like that.”

“Huh.”

John knew Rodney's sounds, and he knew that ‘huh’ meant more than just ‘huh, I'd never thought of it that way’. No, that ‘huh’ was a very definite ‘I've just realised something incredibly important and I'm taking a minute to process it’.

“Would you ever have said anything?” Rodney asked quietly.

John smiled faintly. “If you're asking if I would have stood up at your wedding and made a scene, no. I might have asked you if you were sure, if you were happy.”

“And if I said yes?”

John tore his eyes away from the ocean and looked at Rodney. _God_ , he was beautiful.

Rodney shook his head disbelievingly and answered his own question. “You would have let me walk away. You would have - - “ Rodney dropped the spoon from his hands and grabbed at the neck of John's t-shirt, pulling him close. “You really are as idiotic as all that hair makes you look.”

John didn't get a chance to defend himself. Rodney's lips crushed tightly against his own, his mouth cold and sweet and everything John ever wanted.

The ice cream carton got knocked off the edge of the pier as Rodney started to climb onto John's lap.

“Wait - -“

Rodney shut him up with another kiss. “I don't need ice cream,” he breathed. “It's for broken hearts, remember? You see any broken hearts around here?”

“God, I hope not,” John whispered.

Rodney’s fingers brushed over John's jaw, soft and hard all at once. “No,” he said. “No heartbreak here.”

Rodney kissed him again and John realised that he was right. He wouldn't ever need ice cream again.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 4 of Encore is kicking my butt. Who knew how hard it would be to get them to sit down and talk??? Have this instead. (I will finish this series eventually!)


End file.
